Are you ready to be baffled? Today a report has surfaced from Time Extension, which states that the Wachowski sisters – the writers/directors of The Matrix films – once approached legendary game creator Hideo Kojima to make a game based on The Matrix… and Konami said no.
These comments apparently come from a former VP of licensing over at Konami. Time Extension’s report states that way back in the dark ages of 1999, there was a report in NextGen magazine which stated that Kojima was one of the forerunners in the pack of developers being considered for a The Matrix video game. And remember, 1999 was peak popularity for The Matrix.
Konami Digital Entertainment VP of licensing, Christopher Bergstresser, stated to Time Extension, “The Wachowskis were big fans of Kojima… So Kazumi Kitaue, Kojima, Aki Saito (who still works with Kojima), and I were at the Konami HQ, and we got a call from the Wachowskis, who wanted to come in and meet with Kojima. So they did!
“The two of them came in with their concept artist, and effectively they said to Kojima, ‘We really want you to do the Matrix game. Can you do that?’ Aki translated this into Japanese for Mr. Kitaue, and Kitaue just looked at them and told them plainly, ‘No.’ We did still get to enjoy the Matrix Japanese premiere and afterparty, though.”
However, before you pick up your digital pitchfork and flaming torch, Time Extension also spoke with another former Konami employee who wished to remain anonymous. And this anonymous person did have quite a different story to tell, saying that Konami showed “strong interest” in developing a Matrix game and there was “immense disappointment” that the collab never materialised.
As for why Konami allegedly shut down the project, apparently it was for pretty banal reasons: they simply wanted Kojima to focus on the hugely popular Metal Gear series instead. While I can definitely see the logic behind this, I won’t lie that I am very disappointed this collab never happened.
I just feel that Kojima would have been a perfect fit for The Matrix, and we could have gotten something really interesting that actually played with the really interesting integral concepts that made The Matrix great. But instead, we got Enter The Matrix and the Path of Neo… and I just can’t help but wonder what could have been.
